Film Review: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Director: Nia DaCosta
Colombia Pictures, Decibel Films, DNA Films
In Theaters: 01.16.2026

Now dear SLUG readers, I don’t know if you recall, but a little over a year ago I wrote a review on this little indie zombie flick you might’ve heard of called 28 Years Later. In my review, which was a surprisingly positive shock to many, I said (and I quote), “Even if the rest of the trilogy turns out to be a total flailing clusterfuck, you’ll want to experience the imaginative and elevating thrill ride that is 28 Years Later.” I humbly stand before you and Alex Garland now, a mere cringe “film bro,” asking a simple question: What the fuck was that? Like seriously, I might just be at Stranger Things conformity-gate level of insanity, because there is a good movie in here somewhere, I think (or is it hope?). 

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple kicks off right where its predecessor left us: on the mainland in the care of Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell, Skins, Sinners) and his band of Teletubbie poser preteens. We follow protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams, 28 Years Later, His Dark Materials) being forced to assimilate into what Jimmy calls “his fist,” each child being a “finger” that holds his “crown” (as he believes he is the son of Satan) upon his head. In normal person speak, that means he makes each child take turns doing the most abhorrent things to other children and women. Remind you of a certain English pedophile? I’ll give you a minute since there’s a few. 

While we watch our young protagonist go through this technicolor initiation into Satanism, our story is intercut with a return to one of our brightest shining stars from 28 Years Later, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Conclave). Dr. Kelson manages to tame a certain well-endowed headsman from the previous film and might just be onto a solution for the U.K.’s little rage-virus problem. Unfortunately, our storylines come to an Iron Maiden-ed head when Jimmy and co. run into Doc Kelson at his “bone temple.” 

Now as I mentioned earlier, there’s a good movie somewhere in the clusterfuck of a synopsis I just gave you. Even at his worst, Garland is one of the best. When I look deep into the bones (no pun intended) of the film, I see the personification of humanity and its ability to carry on hope in Dr. Kelson’s story. I think we also see a good personification of the opposite, and much darker side, of humanity in Jimmy’s story. One could argue — and believe me, I’m trying here — the idea that this film is an allegory for the duality of man in dire times (kind of what Garland’s Men was supposed to do), but Garland makes so much of a mockery of his characters that he had so clearly and lovingly built up in 28 Years Later that it waters down any weight in the retelling of this old adage. 

Here’s the other issue: We already saw in 28 Years Later a coming-of-age story with Spike. We witnessed firsthand the death and beautiful bone-bleaching death ceremony of his mentally ill mother alongside him. We know he’s a tough little cookie who learned what was right from wrong and how to be an actual decent man (and yes, the emphasis on gender is important here) in a world gone to the dogs. At a certain point, it’s totally unnecessary to witness what just feels like child torture porn and a completely unnecessary movie. I can agree that the idea of the Jimmy Crystal villain is an intriguing one, yet it just doesn’t translate well into a two-hour film. Jimmy loses his intrigue at around the 25-minute mark and once he’s no longer scary, he’s just kind of boring.  

It’s also not nearly as inventive or stylish as 28 Years Later, which used iPhones in a way that made me forgive the fact they were using iPhones. Though in its cinematographer’s (Sean Bobbitt, Judas and the Black Messiah, Sense and Sensibility) defense, he’s given at once too much and too little to play with. Every aspect of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is great in thought, but fails in execution. A shocking turn of events coming from, mostly, the same people who did 28 Years Later.

Final summation? Beats me, kids. Like I mentioned earlier, I can see the outline of a promising plot, yet is it actually a good movie if I have to perform conflicting mental gymnastics to get to that conclusion? Especially when I’m not even sure if that’s actually the conclusion I believe. I don’t love the movie, but I also don’t totally hate it. Although the longer I sit with it, the more I start to hate it. I also hate — and this could be a totally separate misandrist dissertation meant for my Substack with a whopping one follower — how men are interpreting this movie. I was shocked, and somewhat appalled, at my peer male film reviewers walking out of the theater declaring that this film was better than 28 Years Later. I was also appalled at comments glossing over the best part of the film, Dr. Kelson and what his character is supposed to represent, and instead glorifying Jimmy’s character and his actions that the film is actively critiquing. 

So go see it or don’t; I wouldn’t have paid for it. Let’s hope the third (and I’m praying to God the final) installment makes me eat my words just like this flick made me cannibalize my 28 Years Later review! —Yonni Uribe

Read more film reviews from Yonni Uribe here:
Film Review: Weapons
Film Review: Bring Her Back